Without Granting Innocence
by patientalien
Summary: Post-RotS AU. Anakin is exiled, and Obi-Wan serves as his warden. Very dark, see warnings. A/O, kind of. Updated 11/6/12
1. Chapter 1

**title** without granting innocence  
><strong>author<strong> **patientalien**  
><strong>rating<strong> R  
><strong>word count<strong> 1122  
><strong>summary<strong> post-RotS AU, Anakin is cast out, and Obi-Wan is his warden  
><strong>notes<strong> Written for the "ostracized from society" prompt on my **hc_bingo** card. Dear Lord, I used lyrics from "How to Save a Life" by The Fray for a title. WUT. I think this might be the darkest one yet (like, really dark) so, uh, be warned.  
><strong>warning(s)<strong>self-harm, suicide, character death

* * *

><p>It's nothing less than he has expected. Even in less than right mind, he knows what he has done deserves punishment. Deserves death. One does not slaughter an entire Order without expectation of payment in kind.<p>

While Darth Vader - Anakin Skywalker again, maybe - invites execution (he killed so many of his friends, his wife, his Padawan), the truth is much crueler. They don't even send him to the Citadel, where he would have been free to rot alone.

He is to be a free man, from a certain point of view. Removed from the Force, and from society at large, but free. Free to roam the planet of his exile, free to accept employment from whoever might employ a former Jedi-turned Sith Lord turned nobody. As his warden is the man who raised him, and Anakin is unsure if this is a punishment for Obi-Wan, too.

It is not rehabilitation. It is so he will wake every night to the screams of his victims with no recourse.

888888

Saleucami is not inhospitable, but it is remote, escape nearly impossible. Anakin has no desire to escape, not from Saleucami, anyway.

There are villages, and the two find themselves in one at the far side of a huge caldera, remnants of a meteor storm eons before. They are the only humans, which makes them curiosities. They have nothing with them indicating they were once Jedi and they are left alone.

888888

For weeks they live in silence. Obi-Wan does not speak to him, and Anakin cannot bring himself to speak. He doesn't know what to say. That he's sorry, that he wants to take it all back, that he surrendered on Mustafar not because Obi-Wan had the high ground but because Anakin wanted it to go back to how it was, before. He's said it all, and Obi-Wan has not believed him. Anakin doesn't expect him to start now.

That's not to say Obi-Wan ignores him outright. Usually they circle around each other, but Obi-Wan cooks their meals and they eat together. He rubs soothing circles on Anakin's back during the worst of the nightmares. He washes Anakin's hair when Anakin can't get out of bed on his own. He just does it silently, solemnly, sadly.

88888

No lightsaber means every cut wells with blood, every burn blisters and oozes. The first time Obi-Wan discovers him in their 'fresher, crouched beside the toilet, blood staining the white fixtures, is the first time he speaks. "Anakin, what are you doing?" He sounds horrified, as if he is surprised.

Anakin can only shake his head over and over, hot tears stinging the slashes in his flesh arm. He can't speak his agony to Obi-Wan, doesn't deserve to expound on his grief, not to this man he has hurt so violently, so personally.

Obi-Wan wraps his wounds in bacta patches and lapses back into silence.

88888

They get the holonet, and watch the galaxy rebuild. Anakin curls up on the sofa and stares through the projections. Whenever the news is on, Obi-Wan has to get up several times, unable to watch a world he is no longer a part of.

Anakin forces himself to watch the nightly tally of names of lost Jedi, and when his and Obi-Wan's names appear, he goes into the 'fresher and doesn't emerge again until he has blood-purged his grief.

88888

Anakin isn't sure if Obi-Wan begins talking to him again in an attempt to keep him from staining all of their towels with his guilt, or if it's because Obi-Wan finally cannot stand the silence anymore. In any case, when he greets Anakin at breakfast one morning, it's almost easy to forget they're not just on another mission. And then Anakin reaches out with the Force, meets a brick wall, and remembers.

88888

After three mornings of "Good morning, Anakin," Anakin responds. His voice is hoarse with disuse and the remaining effects of Mustafar's sulfurous air, but he manages to return the greeting. He feels shy, like his first morning as Obi-Wan's apprentice, but with an undercurrent there.

He's not sure what to call his old Master. Obi-Wan never feels right on his tongue, but he knows that 'Master' isn't right either, not after he'd sworn allegiance to another and then recanted.

He doesn't know what to call Obi-Wan, but he talks to him anyway.

88888

Talking doesn't fix anything, because they never talk about why they're on Saleucami to begin with. Neither of them can forget and neither of them can talk about it, so they talk about everything else. When he's wrapping up Anakin's arm or legs or stomach, wiping away the blood and thumbing away the tears, Obi-Wan tells stories. Usually they are about his apprenticeship, but sometimes they are ancient tales. They are never stories about Anakin's apprenticeship, because they both know how that story ends.

88888

Anakin has one scar per Jedi he's killed. He's keeping track, comparing his flesh to the lists read on the holonet news every night. Even when the lists stop, he continues, determined to pay his penance in blood. If he can't die, at least he can physically suffer. Because physical suffering he can deal with, can quantify, can understand. Emotional suffering is what got him into trouble in the first place.

88888

Obi-Wan kisses him one afternoon, and he's not sure what to do. While they'd once been lovers in the dark secret places between battles, since their exile they've barely touched each other beyond the clinical detachment of Obi-Wan's cleansing of his wounds. But then Obi-Wan kisses him, and Anakin realizes that he's wanted it all along. He kisses back, and then they're entwining their bodies and for the first time Anakin feels almost whole again, but then Obi-Wan pushes away, says it is a mistake.

And Anakin is empty again, and alone.

88888

Their lives unfold in spurts and spasms. Anakin goes between blood-stained bathrooms to sinking into glasses of whiskey and back again. Obi-Wan, always dutiful, follows and cleans up the mess, but does not initiate physical contact again. When Anakin wakes up screaming, Obi-Wan offers kind words, but no embraces. Anakin hugs himself, reverts, rocks back and forth, head buried in his knees.

88888

It is Obi-Wan that suggests the idea that both of their suffering can be alleviated. Anakin never thought he'd hear such words from his old Master, but he embraces the idea with a passion he's not felt in what seems like - and must be, by now - years.

88888

The poison is fast-acting, but not so fast that they do not have time to entwine their bodies, hands clasped, evil and pain and madness nothing but a bittersweet memory.


	2. break with the ones you've followed

**Title:** break with the ones you've followed  
><strong>Challenge: SWMININANO<strong>  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> perdition  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 697  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Anakin, Obi-Wan  
><strong>Rating:<strong> R  
><strong>Summary:<strong> post-RotS AU, snapshots of banishment  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> This is actually based on my fic without granting innocence. Kind of... the other side of the coin. Title from "How to Save a Life" by the Fray  
>Warning(s): Very bleak material ahead, might be triggering for SI, depression, PTSD, suicide, character death, etc.<p>

* * *

><p>The silence is maddening. Obi-Wan has not spoken since their ship departed for exile. He has plenty to say, plenty he wants to scream at his companion, plenty of blame and hurt and confusion thrown together in a toxic whorl in his gut. Anakin, though, does not seem responsive to much of anything, so Obi-Wan knows his cries will go unheeded. He tries to release his misery into the Force; it helps, but not enough.<p>

88888

They had told Anakin he was free to find employment, but Anakin can barely get out of bed. Obi-Wan, always so frugal, always so careful, has the savings from his Jedi stipend, enough to keep them comfortable, so Anakin sinks deeper into the blankets and screams in the dark.

88888

Obi-Wan takes care of both of them. He feels like they are Master and Padawan again, but he knows the feeling is a lie. Anakin has chosen another Master, and even if he has denounced his allegiance with the Sith after mere hours as their servant, Obi-Wan still feels like he is living with a stranger. There is nothing to say, so they both keep their silence, punctuated by Anakin's breathy sobs in the middle of the night.

88888

The HoloNet is a blessing and a curse. Each day the death toll grows higher, each day they read of the names of Jedi who have been newly lost. Obi-Wan can't watch, though Anakin spends hours with the projections, curled in on himself. Obi-Wan isn't sure if he is ashamed, or proud, of the destruction he's wrought.

88888

He gets his answer. The 'fresher door is unlocked, but Obi-Wan supposes in hindsight he should have knocked. Anakin crouches beside the toilet, blood is everywhere. He looks up at Obi-Wan with fear and unfathomable pain in his bright blue eyes, razor blade poised over his flesh arm. Obi-Wan's barked-out disbelief (What are you DOING?) are the first words he has spoken in ages.

88888

He doesn't know what to do with the new-found knowledge of Anakin's coping mechanism. And worse, part of him wants Anakin to hurt, to suffer the way he had made the Younglings suffer, Padme, and Ahsoka, and the babies and so many Jedi on so many worlds. His guilt at those angry feelings gnaws at him, he tries to make it better by initiating conversation, but it does not help.

888888

The days smear together. They rarely leave their small house; Obi-Wan gets supplies every other week, but Anakin accompanies him very infrequently. Obi-Wan realizes with a start one morning that he has no idea how long they have been here, and how much longer they will have to endure.

888888

He's not sure where Anakin gets the alcohol, but it seems to take the place of the injury, off and on. Obi-Wan is past the point of wanting to see Anakin in pain, past the point of anger or grief. He has become numb to his own feelings, and instead feels through Anakin. Anakin's feelings are terrifying.

888888

Anakin's whiskey-numbed hands slip in the 'fresher, cut too deeply, the blade skipping across the bone of his wrist. The Force healing Obi-Wan employs brings them closer together than they have been in ages, an intimacy Obi-Wan barely remembers that they once shared. He can't stop himself, kisses away Anakin's humiliated, frustrated tears. When Anakin returns the attention, clutching at Obi-Wan's tunics, entwining their limbs, Obi-Wan realizes this will complicate things entirely too much; they are here because he allowed his attachment to Anakin to blind him. He will not let it happen again. He pushes away and leaves Anakin alone.

888888

Obi-Wan can see Anakin is dying. Little by little, he is withdrawing into himself, disappearing from the galaxy as he fades into the background. Obi-Wan knows this was never what Anakin wanted, that neither of them ever wanted to have the end dictated by forces outside of their control. Obi-Wan considers, and makes his choice.

888888

Anakin seems relieved by the plan, and swallows the poison like a shot of namana, no questions, no protestations. Just glad to be going out on his own terms - on their terms - nestled comfortably in Obi-Wan's arms.


	3. the good man scorns the wicked

**Title:** the good man scorns the wicked  
><strong>Challenge: SWMININANO2<strong>  
><strong>Prompt:<strong> Icon Challenge  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 381  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Anakin, Obi-Wan  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Goodness knows, the wicked's lives are lonely.  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> An off-shoot, once again, of without granting innocence and break with the ones you've followed. Icon text from "Defying Gravity", title, and cut-text from "No One Mourns the Wicked" from _Wicked_. Dark, same warnings as the others (though not AS dark)

* * *

><p>"Well. Get up. Anakin."<p>

Anakin opens his eyes, groggy, disoriented. Obi-Wan is standing over him; he's on the floor in the 'fresher, and he's not sure why. He looks down, sees new bacta patches on his arm, feels the sticky throbbing ache of hangover combined with blood loss. "Sorry," he says. He can't think of anything else to say, and he is sorry, for everything. He's said it so many times, it has lost all meaning. But he does mean it. He is sorry.

"You're always sorry," Obi-Wan responds. It is not cold, or meant to be hurtful, Anakin thinks, though it is distant. He's felt the distance between them since he broke down on Mustafar and while he can't blame his former Master, he still feels hurt. So long on this planet, in exile, so long proving his guilt, and Obi-Wan can still barely look at him.

"I know," Anakin responds softly. Once, right after Mustafar, right before his trial, Obi-Wan had asked him if he was happy with his decision, with what he'd thrown away for his own selfish ends.

Anakin hadn't known how to respond, and he still doesn't. He still is aching with the knowledge that at the time, he'd done the right thing. For himself, for Padme, for the galaxy. Then, in his usual fashion, he'd overextended, gotten overconfident, gotten arrogant and nearly mad. He still feels like he is mad, the nightmares and the fugue states and the injury and the drink and everything else and he knows he is losing his mind.

"Get up," Obi-Wan prompts again, gently, holding out a hand. Anakin takes it, allows Obi-Wan to pull him to his feet. "Come to town with me," Obi-Wan suggests.

Anakin shakes his head. He hates going into town, hates being stared at, hates knowing that Obi-Wan is only bringing him because he's afraid if he doesn't, he'll come home to a corpse. Anakin's not sure why he even cares; he's made his scorn known, his disappointment, his sense of betrayal. And Anakin knows he deserves all of it and more.

He knows he deserves to feel alone, to live in his own head, full of its demons, to die alone and forgotten, the Hero With No Fear nothing but a story book memory.


	4. from some lost and distant shore

**title** from some lost and distant shore  
><strong>author<strong> **patientalien**  
><strong>rating<strong> R  
><strong>word count<strong> 1580  
><strong>summary<strong> Anakin doesn't know who he is anymore.  
><strong>notes<strong> In the "Without Granting Innocence" universe. AU post-RotS. Title from "Hymn for the Missing" by Red.  
><strong>warning(s)<strong>Very bleak material ahead, might be triggering for SI, depression, PTSD, suicide, substance abuse, character death, etc.

* * *

><p>Every so often, he feels strong enough to take a shower. The scalding water flows down his back and he closes his eyes, letting the tears disappear into the spray. He can't control when that happens anymore. Sometimes he'll just be sitting on the windowsill, or reading on the few occasions he can keep the words from swimming around, and the tears will come, hot and insistent, silently dripping down his face until Obi-Wan comes and wipes them away. The thought of Obi-Wan twists his gut, and the tears fall harder, silently - no sobs or cries anymore - as he manages to wash himself, wincing as the soap hits the fresh wounds on his arm. He considers adding to their number as he shaves, but he has a ritual, and he doesn't want to ruin this brief moment of clarity of thought.<p>

And then he is back on Jabiim. The rain slams against his body and the fear and grief are so overwhelming he drops to his knees in the mud. He cradles a fellow Padawan's body close to him, hears the Clones shouting in the distance, his braid hanging heavy over his ear. Explosions ring over his head and he can hear the orders to retreat and his name repeated over and over...

And when he comes back to himself, he is wrapped in blankets on the sofa and Obi-Wan is peering at him critically, warily, like he is some kind of injured wild animal who might strike at any moment. He supposes he is, which is not a particularly comforting thought. "Where did you go?" Obi-Wan asks, handing him a mug of tea.

"Jabiim," Anakin manages, sipping the warm liquid, surprised at how cold he is. "I don't usually go that far back." It is disconcerting, and Anakin scowls that he now has one more thing to worry about, to dread. Jabiim, at least, was not his fault, but it is another reminder of how Palpatine pulled the strings. "It's not his fault, either," he growls to himself. "It's mine." He's well aware of the distinction, now. He drops the mug onto the table.

He feels Obi-Wan shift beside him, can sense as clearly as if he could still tap into the Force, the man's discomfort. He does this to Obi-Wan. It's his fault Obi-Wan's here, his fault Obi-Wan is sad and uncomfortable and everything else.

He leans over, pressing his forearms against his temples, lacing his fingers behind his head, drawing his knees to his chest. He needs to be as small as possible, needs to make sure he is not taking up so much space. When he was still himself, whenever that was, people called him 'larger than life', his presence overshadowing everything around him. Now it's different, now he wants to disappear, because wanting to be in the spotlight partially led down this path.

So many things, he is coming to realize, have led him and Obi-Wan here. He dissects them, picks himself apart. He moans low in his throat, his frustration with himself a weight he has to somehow release. The moan continues until he is wordlessly screaming into the blankets, unable to stop himself.

Obi-Wan sits beside him, and waits it out.

* * *

><p>"I'm going to get some supplies," Obi-Wan tells him a few days later. He knows the next words are going to be an entreaty to leave the house, to join him. Sure enough... "Why don't you come with me? It would be good for you to get out for a while."<p>

"I don't know why you keep asking," Anakin replies, unable to muster the enthusiasm or energy to raise his voice above a murmur. "The answer will always be no."

Obi-Wan, as always, looks disappointed, but perhaps not overly so. Anakin imagines the other man is glad for these times, when he doesn't have to worry about walking on eggshells, waiting for the next outburst. Obi-Wan can escape for these short periods of time, but Anakin can't. Even if he joined the man who used to be his friend, he cannot be certain he won't lose himself in public, that he'll be able to hold everything together. That he won't hurt anyone.

"Are you sure?" Obi-Wan asks, but he is already pulling on his robe. Anakin nods, his thoughts already sliding to what he will do in Obi-Wan's absence. "I'll be back soon," Obi-Wan says. "Be... be safe."

He says it every time he leaves, as if saying the words will really make it so, will truly keep Anakin safe while Obi-Wan's not there to protect him from himself. It's okay, though; Anakin has ways of protecting himself, coping mechanisms he only uses when he's alone.

As soon as Obi-Wan is gone, Anakin opens the bottle. He tries not to think about the steps he'd gone through to get the Wheryn's Reserve, but using his mechanical prowess for their few neighbors in exchange for the stuff is a small price to pay for the relief it can bring. He doesn't do it while Obi-Wan is around; his former Master's presence is enough to keep him from hurting himself too badly. But when Obi-Wan is gone, the barriers are too, and he can't keep the thoughts from intruding - how easy it would be to end it all. So he does this instead, and it makes things easier, until Obi-Wan gets back.

* * *

><p>He is standing in the middle of the Council chambers, hands behind his back, trembling with anticipation. "You are on this Council," Mace Windu tells him, "but we do not grant you the rank of Master."<p>

Fury bubbles up inside him, the inequity of it. He is ten times the Jedi any of them are, and they would deny him his Mastery? Part of him recognizes that this is merely memory, and that part of him clamps down on his immediate reaction - his true reaction. Hubris, his downfall. He sinks to his knees as Obi-Wan informs them, "The boy is dangerous."

_The boy is dangerous. _

Well, Obi-Wan always did have to be right, but soon the memory washes away.

* * *

><p>If Obi-Wan recognizes it when he returns, if he can smell the whiskey on Anakin's breath or notices the extra glassiness of his eyes or the way Anakin jerkily shoves the bottle under the sofa as he enters, he doesn't say anything. He simply puts the groceries away. "Are you okay?" is the most he asks, but that is because he is making sure Anakin has not participated in any of his usual blood-letting rituals in his absence. He doesn't understand that Anakin saves those rituals for when Obi-Wan is here; he doesn't notice that Anakin has no desire to actually die - because that would mean he is no longer being punished. And oh, he still deserves to be punished.<p>

"Like you care," Anakin replies before he can stop himself. Even with the warm glow of the drink coating his nerves, he is still feeling the ever-present ache of melancholy, that doubt of Obi-Wan's true intentions. He didn't mean to say the words, but they slip out nonetheless.

Obi-Wan tenses, and seems to want to reply, but instead he shakes his head. Anakin growls to himself, annoyed that now he has to either go to bed or pretend he hasn't done what he's done and can't let the warmth overtake him and let the feelings float away. "What do you want for dinner?" Obi-Wan asks, as if Anakin hadn't just snapped at him.

"I'm not hungry," Anakin responds dully. He's not, either. He rarely is anymore, only eating when he feels like he's going to pass out - and sometimes not even then. Sometimes he just lets his body shut down for a while, and he feels like he wants to do that now. He needs to punish himself for his transgression this afternoon, for daring to try and help himself feel better. He doesn't deserve to feel better. He doesn't deserve to let the memories flood away on a tide of Wheryn's. He needs to live with them, examine them, turn them over and over and never let the screams of the Younglings, of the Separatist leadership, of Mace Windu, of Ahsoka and Padme, be silenced.

He misses his apprentice. He misses his wife. He misses the Order, and his easy relationship with Obi-Wan; he misses Rex and Cody and his starfighter. He misses Artoo. He misses himself, and knows he is never going to get any of it back, and it's entirely his own fault. He shivers and wraps himself in his blanket, feeling the tears come again and powerless to stop them. He used to be so powerful. And yet he'd wanted more. And now he is completely powerless, completely cut off from everything that once made him who he was. "I don't know who I am," he blurts out.

Obi-Wan stares at him, then lowers his head. "I can no longer tell you," he says, and the words cut across Anakin's mind like a razor blade. Since coming here, Obi-Wan has not offered any words of wisdom, any comfort besides the small kindness of speaking to him at all, of caring for him as one would an unpleasant pet. Anakin cannot blame him, but the phantom memory of what Obi-Wan would have once said hurts.

Anakin pushes himself off the sofa and goes into the 'fresher, and he bleeds.

-end-


End file.
